Grass fires under control amid searing heat

Jane Lee

Firefighters have put out about 15 grass and scrub fires since 9am on Friday and remain on standby as temperatures soar across the state.

With a total fire ban across Victoria, ten firetrucks and about 40 firefighters attended the most significant fire, in Outtrim in South Gippsland, which raged for an hour-and-a-half before being put out at 12.23pm.

Fires in Mill Park, Dandenong South and Lysterfield were being brought under control, a CFA spokesman said. People may still see smoke and fire trucks from nearby roads in these areas.

A CFA spokesman said there had also been a number of smaller fires caused by minor car accidents.

"On days like this you'd expect these sorts of numbers of grass fires...on the Sunday just after Christmas, we had about 50 grass and scrub fires. For a day like today this is (considered) average," he said.

The spokesman said developers were continuing to work on earlier reported glitches on the CFA's FireReady mobile phone app and on its website, which a number of people had complained had been slow to load.

He said people should not rely on one source of information for fire warnings, and to turn to ABC radio in the event of technical errors.